All pregnant women are fair game now
by digby
The anti-choice zealots Alabama have an interesting new protest strategy. They are now harassing pregnant women who are going to the doctor simply for pre-natal care. That's right, women who have chosen to bear children. Apparently, this is being done to protest a doctor who had something to do with a clinic at one time that maybe performed abortions but no longer is. Or something:
When Judge Myron Thompson issued an opinion that overturned Alabama’s TRAP (Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers) law one week ago, his description of the struggles of abortion providers in Alabama’s hostile climate seemed like a rebuttal to the Supreme Court’s recent decision striking down sidewalk “buffer zones.” For example, the opinion relates one doctor’s experience with the “non-violent” tactics of anti-choice activists:
Although she was not performing abortions herself, protestors came to her private practice and began to confront her pregnant patients, just as they had Dr. Palmer’s. Again, they held signs depicting third-trimester abortions. The local leader of the pro-life movement told Johnson that he would protest Dr. H1′s practice for as long as Dr. H1 continued to serve as covering physician for the clinic. Dr. H1 removed her children from their Catholic school due to the publicity surrounding her affiliation with the abortion clinic. She “had a mass exodus of patients from his practice.”
Here's that local leader of the pro-life movement:
He's quite the man of God. This is from an article about how a public school had to fence off its driveway to prevent these crazy loons from protesting a clinic across the street on its property. A clinic that doesn't perform abortions:
Prochoice activists became concerned when they noticed that their counterparts were blocking and annoying parents who were trying to pick up and drop off their children at the school. After reaching out to the city council, police, school board, zoning board, and finally the community outreach officers, a response arrived in the form of three orange plastic nets used to keep the school’s entrances clear of protesters.
“While we have no proof abortions are being done at (the AWWC),” writes Alabama Christian Coalition president James Henderson, ” we do have reason to believe one of their doctors has been doing abortions at various locations, including in Huntsville.” That is completely false: the doctor in question used to provide abortion services at the Madison Street clinic when it was open, but has not provided one abortion since it shut down.
The Alabama Women’s Center for Reproductive Alternatives (AWCRA) shut down a few months ago and has plans to reopen at the AWWC location, but has been waiting on a decision of the zoning board before moving forward. This Summer, Henderson began accusing the city of “not playing fair” towards his efforts to shut down the doctor’s business and prevent AWCRA from reopening.
Shameless, Henderson has made his group’s activities a primary justification for not allowing the clinic to open again in the new location.
This losing fight has apparently inspired Henderson to double-down on defamation. In recent months, he has begun making baseless accusations of violence against volunteer clinic escorts. He is also very proud of his group’s “success” at putting doctors out of business by harassing patients and staff, but none of his sermons or lectures ever express concern for the well-being of pregnant women who are trying to see their doctors and would just like to be left alone, thank you.
Creepy.
.